How do I move blueprints to a book?

[Stretchytall]

I just made my first blueprint book. How do I move existing blueprints into it? Click and drag doesn't work.

[Kyrros]

'Books' are just folders in the game's blueprint file directory. You can add them manually, by opening the folder outside the game in your OS of choice and creating new folders directly. Then you can just move which files you wish to whichever folders you want - which means you can also have books IN your books.

... it's "books all the way down", as it were. "Bookception". "Books written in (re)cursive".

<<Insert Additional Digital Book puns here>>

If you know enough about the directory language format for your OS, you can also just edit the blueprints' filename itself (not to be confused with the Thumbnail name) using the appropriate number of dots and slashes.

[Kyrros]

I suppose I could've just included an example for Windows (which I imagine is 90%+ of the userbase of this game?)

You create a new tile-able blueprint for green chips (aka circuit boards), but then also want the same blueprint available, but inverted (which the current system cannot do when placing)... so now you have two of basically the same blueprint.

When you save the Blueprint, in the pathname, you use the '\' in your pathname to put the file in a folder, which then creates the book. If you want a book for all your different versions of the green chips. You can Create a book titled 'CircuitBoard' by saving the A version and B versions as (for example) in the pathname line:

CircuitBoards\VersionA

and

CircuitBoards\VersionB

This will create two new Blueprint files 'VersionA' and 'VersionB' in a new folder called 'CircuitBoards'.

You will still need to edit the items in-game to add appropriate icons and descriptions, but once they're created, it's an easy task to do for most any other user.

tl;dr Books are just folders in the game's blueprint directory, so use '\' in the in-game pathname in the Blueprint UI to create subdirectories (Books) there.

[Stretchytall]

But why haven't the devs made it so you can just rearrange the blueprints in the game? Why make players actually manipulate files in the OS? Lame. :(

[Overeagerdragon]

Originally posted by Stretchytall:

But why haven't the devs made it so you can just rearrange the blueprints in the game? Why make players actually manipulate files in the OS? Lame. :(

Because the devs are hard at work on the enemies update after fixing the most critical bugs and issues first... This is not a 1000000000-man AAA brand company after all.

[Kyrros]

Originally posted by Stretchytall:

But why haven't the devs made it so you can just rearrange the blueprints in the game? Why make players actually manipulate files in the OS? Lame. :(

You don't HAVE to do it in the OS, it's just quicker that way if you already have a bunch of blueprints saved, rather than having to edit each blueprint in-game one by one.

You can still do it easily in the game, itself, using the Blueprint UI. Under where it says 'path', just use the slash format I outlined above to arrange into folders/books.

As to 'why'? The Blueprint system was not originally intended for this game, due to the irregular grids system inherent in working in a 3D space (i.e. spherical planets) - but, players overwhelmingly requested it, and instead of digging their heels in and saying "No, it's not very compatible with our specific grid system", the devs listened to player feedback and took a massive detour from the intended development roadmap and implemented a workable Blueprint system to fit the irregular grid system they originally chose for the game. It certainly wasn't perfect when it first came out, and it's been tweaked quite a bit since then, but it's still much better than it used to be, and I'm sure they will make additional tweaks over time.

All that being said, as much polish as this game has, (and almost always has since day 01), people seem to forget that this is still an EARLY ACCESS title - meaning, it is still a work in progress. The Devs has said repeatedly that after all the major updates (of which Combat is the final one) that there will be development passes made on both the UI and also performance optimization before the 1.0 launch. This is still a work in progress - and they plan on continuing work after the 1.0 launch, also.

[Stretchytall]

Interesting. On the note of spherical worlds, I was wondering about this. Is it possible to have a spherical world colony builder that doesn't use a grid system and, thus, doesn't have a wacky grid layout at the poles? If every building free floated without a grid and had collision mechanics, would it be possible to have a working game with small planets? Or will there always be spherical space issues for planets that are not at large scale?